Chapter Text
“Lastly,” Granada boomed “you two are going to fight each other as a teeeeaaaaaamm.”.
The Heroics all synchronously hit her with sharp stares, which Granada virtuosly ignored.
The teams squared up, and after Granada blew a whistle, the fight was on!
If you had seen it, it would have been completely unforgettable, and you’d maybe have fainted from the sheer wallop.
The wallop of watching, of course, was nothing compared to the wallop of being the Heroics. Their collective fighting style was the martial kith to hammering a rock with a twig. That is to say, not very elegant, and probably very bad for oneself over time. The highlights, which were the moments that most proved this, included:
-Blinding Fast trying to tackle Batman, being intercepted by Ms Vox (who was salty about earlier with Batman, and hoping to perform a takedown on him), and promptly knocking her(and also himself) over.
-Crimson Legend and Red Lightning Fury getting into a marital-style spat about tactics, and being hucked into walls while distracted
-Miracle Guy stopping to snap a selfie when he was about to clobber Superman, and getting suplexed by Wonder Woman* as penance
-Shark Boy being a tad too excited, and lunging straight into a wall by accident
And finally,
-Invisi Girl, who was hovering above the fight invisibly as to be able to get a good view of the various machinations of her teammates (to blackmail/taunt them later with), and fell into the floor by Miracle Guy accidentally flying into her (though it must be noted, with his enhanced senses, there was a very real possibility of him having done it on purpose, as vengeance for all her badmouthing of him)
After it was over, the Heroics were all squabbling, albeit attempting to disguise it, because Granada had already been breathing down their necks about various things, including competency on the battlefield and their inability to operate well together.
“What was up with you two?!” Vivian hissed. “If you don’t get yourselves together, everyone’s going to get chewed out for iMpRoPeR cOnDuCt!”.
“You don’t think we know that?” Sophia* cried. “I’m getting reeeaaaal sick of you sitting on your high horse, and acting like you have nothing to do with all of-”
“That’s enough!” Red snapped, cutting her husband off. “Ugh, you’re being so big-headed.”.
“Who’s that directed to?”. Sophia burst. “Me, right? You’re half the reason we can’t agree on anything during battles!”.
“Maybe you two should just, like, go to counseling or something?” Clair butted in. “Or like, divorce?”.
All three of them (Vivian, Sophia, and Red)whipped their heads at her, their faces showing terrible irritance.
Clair attempted to return such a gesture, failed, shrugged her shoulders, and said
“Really? You’re gonna give me that?”.
“Clair!” Someone shouted.
Clair jumped, and attempted to make herself look as innocent and harmless as possible.
Mira stomped towards her, a crushed cellphone in his right hand.
“Mirrrraaaaaa..!” Clair drawled, her California accent* thickening in fear. “How you beeeen?”.
“Don’t give me your Valley-Girl malarkey, what the huck* is this?!”.
He held up the phone, the screen of which was more crack than anything else.
“Well, like, that’s a question I have too. What are you trying to show here?” Clair innocently asked. Mira facepalmed in frustration.
“You know what I’m talking about! Thirty minutes ago, your InstaTwit posted a selfie, with me looking stupid in the background, and there’s a caption about me being a sore loser.”.
Clair barely restrained a glacial giggle. “I mean, am I wrong? You were like, being such a baby.”.
Vivian looked at Clair and slid her finger over her throat while gritting her teeth. It’s not that Clair didn’t catch the message, she just had the sense of a brain-damaged cat and therefore saw no threat in Mira’s truly magnacious legal team.
“I’m suing you for libel, as soon as possible!” Mira spat. In response, Clair just shrugged. (One had to note, when judging her reaction, that while Mira had a mighty legal counsel, so did Clair, and a countersuit to Mira could potentially be just as devastating to him.)
“VIVIAN!” Someone yelled. Vivian groaned. She turned and saw Lavagirl and Sharkboy aggressively making their way to her.
“Please explain to this bonehead that just because I call him that, doesn’t mean he should try using his skull as a projectile!”.
Sharkboy took off his mask so he could emote at her, and what he emoted was some sort of stubborn annoyance.
“Don’t give me that face, when you crack your head open, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”. She turned to Vivian.
“I could go to Granada, but she’s, ah, a little, I mean-” Lavagirl floundered.
“You know you don’t have to explain, she’s my boss too.” Vivian affirmed.
“Oh, yeah.” Lavagirl sighed. “Anyways, in regards to the matter at hand,” she gestured towards Sharkboy. “He needs a bit of a second opinion regarding his impulse control, so please kindly knock some flooking sense into him.”.
About three minutes later, basically every Heroic (except Gunner*, who was being dragged to an HR meeting on not belittling others) was enraptured in a comically complicated argument/yelling match.
Several metres away, Ms Granada was standing completely still, internally one more irritance away from going nuclear.
Green Lantern leaned over to her and whispered
“Wow. Can’t wait for the A-team to show up and chew these fuckers out.”.
Ms Granada turned to him and sighed.
“The Heroics are Earth’s premier superhero team. To put it plainly, they are the A-team.”.
Hal took another look at the Heroics, now currently wheeling in a chalkboard for some reason, with a few of them splintering off to play a stupidly elaborate rock-paper-scissors game* for similarly stupidly elaborate reasons. He turned white, suddenly feeling very sorry for the civilians, who’d no doubt get invaded by aliens at some point and have to rely on these people to handle it. He resolved to never tell Ollie about this, unless he was in the mood for a political spiel.
Hal slinked over to Clark, at the moment having just had a conversation with Bruce, which must have gone somewhat poorly, because Bruce was growling under his breath, something about “that kid going to get himself killed”, and Clark was looking at him woefully and sighing.
“Heeeeeeyy, Clark, uh, are you also a little… concerned, about the Heroics?” Hal asked.
Clark whipped around his head.
“Well…” He drawled, his accent thickening slightly. “How are we defining ‘concerned’?”.
“Look at these bozos, what happens when they fight anything more dangerous than, like, I don’t know, Doctor Polaris? There’s only two options here, okay? Either this is another one of those dictator earths, where it looks relatively fine at first, if maybe a little weird, and then it turns out they’re lobotomizing people or some shit. Or it could be that they’re just really frickin’ incompetent and one day they’re gonna actually deal with something serious, and everyone’s gonna die.”.
“Hal, that’s… kind of dramatic. Their earth seems to be doing okay so far, which at least theoretically implies that the Heroics are at least kind of qualified. Come on Hal, we have our own earth to manage, and it’s not like the Heroics are running a totalitarian dictatorship-”
“As far as you know.”. Hal said darkly.*
“SO, I think they should left to their own devices, at least for now. I guess we could come back in a few months and make sure no one’s established a thought police.”.
“I can’t believe it!”. Hal fumed. “They’re in desperate need of a goddamn reality check! I bet, if they get invaded by aliens, they’d get captured and/or killed immediately, and a bunch of random ten-year-olds would do better!* Keep in mind, Granada told me they were the best heroes around, so I would hate to see the worst ones!”.
“Wait, the Heroics are considered the best? In this city, or…” Clark grimaced. “You know what, an intervention seems a lot more warranted.”.
“Yes! Finally! Now let’s get Bats here so he can whip them into shape.”.
Clark leaned on the wall and plaintively held his hands up.
“Oh, no, um, he’s, I worry a little brutal. You know how it goes, if you’re too mean when telling someone something, especially if they’re kind of egotistical, they’ll just assume you’re being mean and completely disregard everything you’re saying. Also, you know what’s been going on with Bruce, since, uh…”.
Awkward silence befell the two of them.
“Let’s just go talk to whoever the Heroics’s leader is.” Clark said, starting to walk back to the sparring room.
“‘SCUSE ME!” Clark yelled. The Heroics (once again including Gunner, who had come back from that HR meeting)all ceased chattering/debating/arguing/screaming, and turned towards Superman, hovering about one-and-a-half meters above the floor.
“I didn’t really want to yell, but I’d have been there for a week otherwise. All I need to know is, which among you is team leader?”.
Vivian started to raise her hand, but Mira shoved it down and quickly thrust his own hand in the air.
“Okay, Miracle Guy, can we have a chat? Just us.*”.
Mira was about to say sure, but he was grabbed by Vivian before he could.
“If you don’t mind, Miracle and I are going to have a chat of our own real quick, okay?”. And then she yanked him into an adjoining room.
“You better say yes to him! He’s like you, but tolerable.” Vivian hissed.
“I was gonna!” Mira spat. “And what, am I not tolerable? You know I’m the one with the biggest fan club*, right?”.
Vivian rolled her eyes.
“Being the object of celebrity worship does not equal not being a jerk.” She chided “Anyways, two things:
One, you can not mess this up. Listen to him like there’s a gun to your head, and actually try to take anything he says seriously, instead of assuming he’s just jealous or something like last time.
Two, why ever did you present yourself as leader?”
“Because I am? I’m the strongest, why shouldn’t I be leader?” Mira huffed.
“You may be the strongest, but you’re also such a shithead, and you’re responsible for zero of our coordination in the field. I, meanwhile, am the only person keeping this team together, and really I’d say I’m overqualified for my current position.”.
Mira made a tch noise and crossed his arms.
“If we’re talking cOoRdInAtIoN then isn’t it technically Marcus Moreno?”.
“He’s not even in the field.” Vivian argued “He just does the paperwork and whatnot for stuff like that time we destroyed the mayor’s office, or all the slander and libel lawsuits.”.
Mira grunted out of annoyance.
“Ugh, fine, point made, now if you’ll excuse me, you’ve wasted enough of my time, so I’m leaving now.”.
“Yeah, sure,” Vivian flipped her hair and smiled savagely “just tone down your personality a little.”.
“I don’t really want to judge you too hard,” Superman started, after they had gone into a nearby lounge. “I mean, as far as I know so far, you might be the only superheroes on this earth, which probably means you have to handle most everything that happens, with a relatively small team to boot.”.
Miracle Guy leaned back against a couch and nodded in what he hoped was a placating fashion.
“But,” Superman placed his hands together. “You can’t really blame me for, uhm, noticing some problems in your team's management.”.
Miracle Guy scoffed.
“Management is what that chicken Marcus Moreno does, and I think we’re fine on that front. Come on, it’s not that complicated, you just hit the villain/monster-of-the-week with whatever until it stops being a problem, all in time to pick up your son from school.”.
“That’s an…” Superman hunted for the right word “Overly simplified version of fighting. I’m not gonna pretend I don’t also just do that sometimes, but you do realize that sometimes it’s actually faster to say, talk them down, or get one of your stealthier members to ambush them real quick.
“What do you mean tAlK tHeM dOwN, they’re bad guys.” Miracle Guy protested.
“Hey, it’s always worth a shot, because if you’re lucky, you don’t actually need to throw hands, and it really saves a lot of time.” Superman explained “Also, what is up with your assumption that bad people aren’t still people? Unless you’re fighting someone who kicks puppies and eats crying infants for breakfast, there’s still always a chance they’ll choose to surrender. Anyways, we’re getting off topic, and I’m just gonna say it, what is up with your team fighting like they’ve been lobotomized and no longer have any higher reasoning ability?”.
“Hey, we’ve been managing fine-”
“Earlier you bowled over Invisigirl for some reason, and I knew that because you knocked yourself out of the air somehow too. “(And his superhearing)” Look Miracle Guy, if you don’t take your job seriously, you are aware lots of people will die right?” Superman really hoped he was aware. “You’re carrying a really important responsibility, and you seem to be using that responsibility as a basketball.”.
“Look wise guy, if I’m doing such a bad job, then why hasn’t the earth been blown up yet?” He snapped.
“It’s probably on its way there if your team is always simultaneously fighting menaces and each other. I just get the feeling that all of you are way too willing to let personal drama leak into your interactions on the battlefield.” Superman said.
Miracle Guy nodded again, remembering that Vivian had told him to ‘tone down his personality’, and diplomatically said
“Noted, now if you’ll excuse me, I uh, think I hear Liam* calling me to pick him up from robotics.”.
He pushed past Superman and walked to the meeting room like he was god-emperor of the world.
“There’s no way he had the self-awareness to acknowledge any of that.” Bruce snorted.
“I’m pretty persuasive, wouldn’t you say?” Clark said “I once told someone I was disappointed in them and they started crying.*”.
“You are, but I’m pretty sure that megalomaniac parading around in the guise of a superhero could be given a full-length dissertation on his issues, and it’d go right in one ear and out the other.”
“I had to try.”.
“Fair point.”
“So are you gonna hang out in this workshop and stare aggressively at stuff, trying to crack the key to multiversal travel, or are you going to find a unicorn* and actually adhere to a sane sleep schedule?” Clark joked.
“Hilarious.” Bruce deadpanned. “And for your information, yes, I will. You know Gotham, if I leave it alone for any stretch of time, it will invariably implode somehow, so it’s in its best interest if I get back as soon as possible.”.
“You know what? I know full well I could never convince you, so to each their own. See you in the morning.” Clark headed for the door. Before leaving, he turned back towards Bruce. “I’ll get you some coffee then.”.
Bruce grumbled, but he couldn’t quite stop himself from smiling.*
About fifteen hours later, at around seven o’clock, Bruce faceplanted into bed. It was about the time that most people would have been waking up, or at least near it, but one of the many prices of being Batman was choosing between nocturnality (not always possible, mind you, because most days Bruce had to run around and act as Brucie Wayne, and therefore Bruce couldn’t sleep), and subsisting off of maybe one or two hours of sleep for the entire day. Today, he had decided on nocturnality.
Just as he got comfortable, Barry busted into his room.
“BRUCE! YOU GOTTA GET UP, NOW!”.
He would have told Barry off for the sudden intrusion, but he seemed very truly freaked out, so Bruce reasoned this had to be for a good reason, and he quickly flung out of bed to get on his clothes.
After he had on his armour, Bruce went onto the balcony so he could glide down, and was greeted by the sight of alien ships descending down, getting progressively closer to the ground. He groaned. As if this week wasn’t shaping up to be any worse.